While Alonso snapped at Massa’s heels the pair came under attack from Hulkenberg. The Sauber driver made an early pit stop on lap nine and once Ferrari had reacted to it Hulkenberg jumped ahead of both their drivers.

Soon afterwards Alonso took advantage of Massa behind held up to pass his team mate, and eventually retook Hulkenberg as well.

See how this phase of the race unfolded and more with the lap chart and race chart below:

Japanese Grand Prix lap chart

The positions of each driver on every lap. Use the control below to show/hide different drivers:

http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/charts/2013drivercolours.csv

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Mark Webber

1

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

2

3

6

4

3

2

2

2

2

2

2

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3

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2

2

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2

2

2

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

3

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3

3

3

3

3

3

3

2

2

Sebastian Vettel

2

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

3

2

2

1

1

3

3

3

3

3

3

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3

3

3

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2

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

3

3

3

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

Lewis Hamilton

3

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

Romain Grosjean

4

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

3

2

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

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1

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2

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3

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2

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Felipe Massa

5

5

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9

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6

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6

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9

9

7

6

6

7

11

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9

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9

10

10

Nico Rosberg

6

4

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4

4

4

4

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4

4

4

3

6

5

5

7

12

12

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10

10

10

15

15

13

11

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11

9

8

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7

11

10

9

9

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8

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8

8

8

Nico Hulkenberg

7

7

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8

10

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7

6

6

5

5

5

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5

7

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4

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6

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Fernando Alonso

8

6

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2

8

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6

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Kimi Raikkonen

9

11

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8

11

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7

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5

5

Jenson Button

10

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15

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12

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11

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11

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11

16

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15

13

12

12

10

10

9

9

8

8

8

8

8

7

14

13

12

11

11

11

10

10

10

10

10

9

9

Sergio Perez

11

8

8

8

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8

8

8

8

8

7

7

5

12

11

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10

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9

8

8

13

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12

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12

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11

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9

11

17

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Paul di Resta

12

12

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12

12

12

12

12

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14

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17

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Valtteri Bottas

13

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Esteban Gutierrez

14

9

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9

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12

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8

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12

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Pastor Maldonado

15

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Daniel Ricciardo

16

14

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12

12

10

9

7

5

4

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4

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4

4

5

10

16

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8

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13

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17

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Jean-Eric Vergne

17

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12

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Max Chilton

18

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Giedo van der Garde

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Charles Pic

20

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Jules Bianchi

21

Adrian Sutil

22

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Japanese Grand Prix race chart

The gaps between each driver on every lap. Use the control below to show/hide different drivers:

24 comments on 2013 Japanese Grand Prix lap charts

For a place so fast, and so narrow, it was glorious to see all those dancing through Spoon and the esses. The aerial shots nailed it aswell. Kudos to Fuji TV, this year they did well (maybe because there wasn’t a japanese in the grid?)

You’ve gotta be kidding dude! But you are right, Vettel doesn’t need to rely on help from his team mate. Why would he? Every time his team mate is in front of him the team feel the need to change strategies which, surprise surprise, puts him in front of his team mate.

Total crock from redbull today! Absolutely no need to pit Webber when they did! 10 laps to go, 15 seconds ahead of Vettel and lapping at roughly the same pace. Yeah, definitely a good call to bring him in!

Do you think that he could have driven 28 laps (more than half distance) on the hard tyres without falling back? Thinking ahead helped RedBull here to avoid Webber falling back behind Vettel and Grosjean.

Webber could have easily had a 2-stopper. RBR deliberately 3 stopped him to help Vettel. Nothing wrong in that as Seb is at the threshold of winning a WDC. Only thing is Horner shouldnt lie about Webber destroying his tires. Lap times dont support that. Check last year. In 2012 after being hit by Grosjean, Mark came in on the first lap and then stopped only once making it virtually a 1-stopper.
RBR are worse than Ferrari now, but hide it. Just say this driver is our No. 1 and his winning is the first priority

The non-whipping-boy created a disadvantage for the entire team. If Massa wanted to show he can be faster than Alonso he failed miserly, bringing only problems to the team.
Being in another team’s shoes remotely interested in sign Massa, I would take into account that the non-whipping-boy can get frustration, act selfish and create issues.

As far as I know, Alonso:
1) didn’t ask for a TO (cannot be sure but nothing like that was heard that I know off)
2) passed Massa fair and square a
if there is any data to contradict me I’d like to know, thanks

Not sure if this is beneficial or detrimental to Felipe’s mission for a 2014 seat. Sure, it shows he’s capable of being selfish and single-minded, which are qualities of a top driver. But are there many teams out there who will hire a driver who won’t do what he’s told?

It’s great to see Massa driving for himself and all, but I can’t see how it’s going to help his cause…

I think it’s a shame Hulkenberg lost out to Alonso, but I think 4th place was his to lose. He had done all the hard work to come out of the pits just ahead of Alonso at the start of their final stints, and ‘all’ he had to do was to keep Fernando behind. Instead, he pushed pretty hard at the beginning of his final stint (which was going to be more than 20 laps), and ultimately lost out to the Ferrari driver who had been saving his tyres. If he had kept Fernando at around 1.5 seconds – but no more – he might have kept enough life in his tyres to defend.